Newswire: Early Simpsons writer says she was kept out of the writers’ room for being a woman

If you look at the list of all 126 people who’ve ever been credited with writing or co-writing an episode ofThe Simpsons, you’ll notice two things very quickly: First, the very first name on the list is a woman, cartoonist Mimi Pond—who wrote the series’ legendary premiere, “Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire,” on the request of her friend Matt Groening—and second, despite that, Pond only has that one credit to her name. This week, Jezebel did an interview with Pond (who currently has a new graphic novel, The Customer Is Always Wrong, out with Drawn And Quarterly), revealing that she was shut out of the show’s writers’ room by its first showrunner, the late Sam Simon, because she was a woman.

“I was never invited to be on staff, and I never knew why for the longest time,” said Pond, whose TV work ...